Monthly Archives: April 2017

What Is A Luxury Apartment in Berkeley?

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I went to campus on Cal Day, April 22. Several of the new apartment houses in Berkeley near campus had booths there. There was one thing that these booths all had in common. They all claimed that they were renting luxury apartments, and only luxury apartments. The word ‘luxury’ was on everything. It was on the sales literature, the promotional giveaways, and the clothes that the sales agents were wearing. See the photo below of a shopping bag that I picked up on Cal Day. I asked a man working at one of these booths: “Your literature says that all your apartments are luxury apartments. What does that mean? I toured your building last week. I walked through a couple of 2 bedroom apartments. (One apartment was $4,500 a month. The other, which had a better view, was $4,800. a month including a parking space). They weren’t very big, and they didn’t seem to have anything luxurious about them, you know, like fine woodwork or marble floors, drapes, etc. In fact, neither of them even had a separate living room. What makes them luxury apartments?” The man working at this booth had an answer for me. I could see that he had been asked this question before. He said: “By luxury, we mean that our apartments are luxury priced.” AHA! So now I know what the word ‘luxury’ means, at least in Berkeley! ‘Luxury’ just means very EXPENSIVE! It tells you nothing about the apartment. Now frankly, I don’t think that ‘expensive’ is a reasonable definition of the word ‘luxury.’ Do you?

Berkeley Bans Fur.

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In April, the Berkeley city council passed a law banning the sale of fur clothing. The city council says this law is just symbolic because they claim: “there are no stores in Berkeley that sell fur clothing”. However, that isn’t true! There are lots of stores in Berkeley that sell fur clothing, especially shoe stores. I have been wearing sheepskin moccasin bedroom slippers for years. They sell them at a number of stores in Berkeley. Mine are wool lined inside, like most moccasins. It is now illegal to sell moccasins like these in Berkeley unless you scrape the wool off the sheepskin first, which nobody is going to do. Besides, what the difference? Whether the wool is attached to the sheepskin or not, the sheep it came from is just as dead either way.

Rabbit Foot Keyrings. This is one fur product that has always been a mystery to me. I do not understand the appeal of this product. I sometimes see rabbit foot key rings for sale in stores. Do people really believe that carrying a dead rabbit’s foot in your pocket will bring you good luck? Yes! I once saw a man playing blackjack in Las Vegas, holding a rabbit’s foot in his left hand. When he won a big bet, he kissed the rabbit’s foot! As I left, I wondered: ‘Why would anyone imagine that a rabbit’s foot will bring you good luck?’ Obviously, cutting the feet off a rabbit didn’t bring the rabbit good luck! Well – did it?

 
CALIFORNIA SEA OTTERS. Some good news

In the late 1800s, sea otters in many places around the world were hunted to extinction for their soft luxurious fur. At the time of the California Gold Rush, it is estimated that there were 20,000 California sea otters, but by 1900, they were all gone. There were no sightings of sea otters in California for decades. They were believed to be extinct. Then in 1938, a small colony of California sea otters was sighted in a remote cove near Big Sur. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife immediately (and wisely) imposed a complete ban on capturing, killing, or harassing sea otters – and enforcing it with patrols. Today, there are several thousand California sea otters along the central and northern coast of the state. Frankly, I am a sucker for sea otters. I can watch sea otters for hours without getting bored. I sometimes see them near Seal Rocks in San Francisco. You can hear sea otters at some distance when they are eating oysters. It is fascinating how they do this. A sea otter will pick up an oyster with one paw and a rock with the other paw and then come to the surface. The otter then rolls over onto his back, places the rock on his stomach and then hits the oyster on the rock until he breaks the shell. It is amazing to me that sea otters figured out how to use rocks as tools to eat oysters. Here is a You Tube video showing a sea otter near Santa Cruz eating clams this way: Sea Otter Eating Clams.

Bank Fees You Can Avoid.

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Banks love to open new accounts for college students. That’s why banks set up tables and booths on campus at the start of the school year with giveaways if you open an account on the spot. Most college students have very little or no experience dealing with banks before going to college, so banks can nail them for fees that older, more experienced customers have learned to avoid. Banks earn billions of dollars a year from these fees. Here are some common bank fees that you can avoid.

Overdraft fees. These can be expensive. They typically run $25 to $35 per check. You can avoid overdraft fees by monitoring your balance with a free smartphone bank app or signing up for email alerts that tell you when you balance is getting low. You should opt out of bank overdraft protection plans that set you up to overdraw on your checking account. If you have more than one account at your bank, like a checking account and a savings account, you can often link them together so that if there isn’t enough money in your checking account to pay a check, money is automatically transferred into your checking account from your savings account, avoiding an overdraft fee.

ATM Withdrawal Fees. These are less expensive, typically $2 or $3 per transaction, but they can add up. You can avoid these fees by using your own bank’s ATM machines or by using your supermarket’s cash-back feature when you pay with a debit card, which at most banks is also your ATM card.

Checking account monthly fees. These typically run $8 to $15 a month. Recurring monthly fees like these can really add up over time. If you are paying your bank a $10 a month account fee, that will cost you almost $500 over 4 years. Some banks offer free checking accounts if you sign up for other bank services, like direct deposit. You can also switch your checking account to a credit union or a branchless online virtual bank where free checking is common.

Check printing fees. Some banks charge $75 for printing checks. A lot of people assume that you have to get your checks printed by the bank where you have your account, but that isn’t true. You can get your checks printed anywhere. Costco has the best deal on check printing. You can get 500 printed-to-order high quality checks from Costco for just $12 to $15 with free shipping. Licensed character checks, like Finding Nemo or Mickey Mouse checks cost $5 more. If you do not have a Costco membership card, you probably know somebody who does. You can order checks from Costco online. You don’t have to go to a Costco store.

Gluten-Free Toilet Bowl Cleaner?

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I saw this product at Berkeley Bowl. I read the back labels on household chemicals like this. Some toilet bowl cleaners contain ingredients that can damage the plumbing, like hydrochloric acid. This product befuddled me. At the bottom of the back label (below) it says that this product is ‘GLUTEN FREE.’ Now, I don’t doubt that they are telling the truth about this product being gluten free, but what’s the point? Do people drink this stuff? Toilet bowl cleaner isn’t a beverage.

Charles de Gaulle & Donald Trump.

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In October of 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Paris to meet with President Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle had often opposed U.S. foreign policy, and Kennedy wanted a united front against the nuclear missiles in Cuba. At their meeting at the Elysee Palace, Dean Acheson offered to show de Gaulle CIA surveillance photos of the Russian nuclear missile complexes in Cuba. Acheson said: “Here, let me show you the photos.” President de Gaulle waved off Acheson and said: “No. No. No. No. I don’t need to see the photos. The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me.”

Now, I wonder – what world leader today would say the same thing about Donald Trump? “No. No. No. No. I don’t need to see any evidence. The word of President Trump is good enough for me.” Hmmm. Well, who would say that?